I must say that I never measured the competency level, and in most case got my transformants (as for most of the other cases, that is common when you try to express a protein that is toxic for your bacteria).I have been known to "steal" from TA cloning kits the competent cells that came in the package (we had a lot of that because generally they were not what we wanted to transform our constructs in) as they are a bit more consistently successful.

But for TFb1 and 2, they were prepared in a batch in advance and stored in the fridge fully dissolved and ready to use (they are really stable).

Patrick

Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without
any proof. (Ashley Montague)